


Crossing Borders, or One Way House Could Have Apologized, If He Wasn't Such an Asshole

by Ignaz Wisdom (ignaz)



Category: House M.D.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-26
Updated: 2006-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-01 23:45:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignaz/pseuds/Ignaz%20Wisdom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Apologies are offered, and someone makes an unusual suggestion.  Post-"Whac-a-Mole."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossing Borders, or One Way House Could Have Apologized, If He Wasn't Such an Asshole

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Chris and Natlet for beta reading. This is my first story in the fandom. All comments are appreciated.

The knock, when it came, wasn't entirely unexpected. The timing -- roughly two minutes after he'd walked back into his hotel room -- was. He had figured House would take longer to ride the motorcycle around and stew. He'd counted on a two A.M. knock, on pretending House had woken him, on pretending his eyes were red and bleary from sleep and nothing else. Instead, when the knock came, he was still reeling from the day's miseries. He'd only had time to take off his tie.

House, of course, came barreling through the door as soon as he opened it, windblown and smelling faintly of sweat and gasoline.

"Come in," Wilson said redundantly.

"Don't mind if I do," House said, dropping his jacket onto a chair, from which it immediately fell into a pile on the floor. He started pacing the room with an unfamiliar cane in his hand.

Wilson stared at him for a long time, waiting for something -- not an apology, because he wasn't that naive, but something. Some sort of acknowledgment of what had happened between them earlier, in his office and again at the bus stop, and what was still happening with every second that ticked by, as Tritter's campaign to destroy House rolled forward, crushing everything and everyone in its path. Wilson would have welcomed almost any indication that House knew what was happening and gave a damn.

House stopped moving and stared right back, with the same glint in his eye that Wilson had seen a hundred times before: the one he got whenever he was putting together the pieces of a diagnostic puzzle. It wasn't the first time he'd had that look aimed at him, although part of him understood that it might be the last. Disconcerting, to be on the receiving end of that look. Part of him missed it already.

Wilson sighed. "You know, I'm not really in the mood to play games tonight."

House held his gaze a moment longer before averting his eyes. "I'm going to help us both get through this," he said quietly.

"I'm sure you'll understand if I'm a little bit skeptical of that."

House looked back at him and started pacing again. "You dropped fifteen grand to bail me out of jail," he said.

Whatever he'd been waiting for, this wasn't it. "I'm glad you remember," Wilson said.

"You also lied for me," House added, squinting suspiciously at him.

Wilson tried to shrug, but the tension in his shoulders made it look more like a spasm. "What was I supposed to do?" he demanded. "Say 'yes, officer, House did steal my pad and forge my name to get a prescription for a narcotic'?"

House paced in a circle around him, like some creature stalking its prey. "You lied to the fuzz for me."

"The _fuzz_?"

"You risked your license," House concluded thoughtfully, cocking his head to the side. "You lied to the cops and you risked your license." He stared hard at Wilson, as if willing him to deny it.

After a moment of bewilderment, Wilson sagged. "Yes," he said. Being confronted with it -- with the crazed, self-destructive things he'd done out of loyalty to the man trying to stare him down in his hotel room -- was somehow worse than having done them in the first place. "Yes," he said again.

House smirked and held his arms out triumphantly. "You're in love with me," he declared.

"Oh, yeah," Wilson agreed after a startled moment of silence, the sarcasm dripping from his mouth. "That's gotta be it."

"I rest my case."

"I am not in love with you!" Wilson protested, despising the way his voice rose in pitch but blaming it on the stress of having his car towed, his finances frozen, and his entire life turned upside down. All things considered, House was lucky Wilson hadn't killed him.

House crossed his arms over his chest. "You ever do that for any of your wives?"

"None of my wives were deranged, pill-popping addicts who left thermometers in cops' rectums," Wilson snapped. "And besides, my doing that for you hardly indicates that I --" He bit the word off, flinched, tried again: "-- have those kinds of feelings. It's considerably more likely that being in such close proximity to you over the years has caused some of your insanity to rub off on me."

"Heh," House smirked. "You said 'rub off.'"

"Oh, yes, acting like a degenerate twelve-year-old is really the best way to discuss this."

"You're right," House agreed, and then he stepped forward and kissed Wilson full on the mouth.

Some time later, he asked, "How about a degenerate forty-something?"

Wilson gaped. "You kissed me," he said.

"You lied for me."

Wilson brought a hand to his mouth and ran his thumb over his lower lip. "I can't believe you just did that."

House stared back at him, smart-ass remarks momentarily put aside, his eyes all challenge.

"I can't believe I actually liked it," Wilson said.

Something changed in House's gaze. Something went somehow dark and bright at the same moment. He stepped back into Wilson's space again and held him by the unbuttoned collar of his dress shirt while he scraped the hell out of Wilson's chin with that damned stubble.

"You're a complete bastard," Wilson mumbled into his mouth when they broke apart again.

House smirked, which was considerably less annoying now than it had been every time before. "You love it. You love _me_," he said.

Wilson frowned at him and, gripping him by the shoulders, gingerly pushed him away. "Maybe I used to," he said quietly. "Back when there was a way I could continue to delude myself into thinking that you actually gave a damn about our friendship."

He got an almost perverse sense of pleasure out of watching House falter: seeing the color drain from his face, watching his smug mouth go slack with surprise. But on the heels of the enjoyment came guilt, regret, sympathy -- all the things that usually accompanied a refusal to give House what he wanted.

Without the cocky bravado, House looked older and tired, almost chastened. He moved as if to speak and then seemed to reconsider the decision. Finally, he ran a hand over his face, scratching at his jaw.

"I didn't know why you were sticking your neck out for me," he muttered.

"Because you were my friend! Friends are supposed to help each other out! Which you would know," Wilson added, "if you had half an ounce of human decency in you."

"Yeah," House drawled, "I'm an asshole. A complete bastard. I'm glad we're still clear on that point." Abruptly, he changed tone. "Your medical license is on the line," he said. "You could serve time. Being a friend is letting someone crash on your couch for a week, not sacrificing your entire life on the chance that it might keep him out of jail." He swallowed and looked away. "I was surprised. I didn't expect that from you. I didn't expect any of this. Maybe I wanted to see how far you'd go. How far I could push you. I wanted you to have a way out, if you wanted to take it. To figure out ... if there was any chance of this working. This ... thing."

"You wanted me to ditch you."

"I wanted you to have a choice."

"So you figured if I'd choose to bail you out of prison, lie to the cops, and risk my license to save your ass, that I'd ... just keep bending over? Only this time, literally?"

"The way you say it makes it sound so unromantic," House said. At Wilson's incredulous look, he quickly added, "And there's still the fact that I'm an asshole without an ounce of human decency. That was a pretty big part of it."

Wilson felt his mouth tightening. "This is just one big, ongoing joke for you, isn't it?"

"Hey," House half-shouted, his face suddenly twisted in anger. "I'm still the one with my ass on the line here. You can go to Tritter to apologize and rat on me any time you like. You can get your car and your pharmacy privileges back in an hour if you want. What are my options? Do you know? Because I fucking don't." He stopped and rolled his neck, then said more quietly, "And you could have told me to go screw myself. Then I'd be the lovesick bi-curious cripple about to go to jail, and all you'd be is Dr. Wilson, whose friend propositioned him after swindling him out of fifteen grand."

Wilson narrowly dodged a coughing fit. _Lovesick?_ "No, I can't," he said.

House frowned. "What?"

"I can't," Wilson repeated. "I can't go to Tritter anytime I like." At House's continuing confusion, he added, "You said it. I --" The word caught in his throat again. "I --"

"I'm sorry," House said, cutting him off and sparing him the struggle. "I'm sorry I'm a dick and I'm sorry I let you get stuck in the middle of this bullshit. I never meant to leave you hanging with the prescriptions. And I don't want you to quit your practice. I'm sorry."

The apology, like the knock, wasn't entirely unexpected, but it was startling in its sincerity. It was enough to make Wilson want to kiss him, which he soon did. With a little more intent and clarity, he realized just how not like a woman House was. The fact that the man apparently shaved about once a week was a significant factor. His mouth was enormous compared to the women Wilson had kissed over the years, and he was way pushier, which shouldn't have come as any surprise at all.

What did come as a surprise was when House dragged his mouth away, with obvious reluctance, and hissed at Wilson, "Come to Mexico with me."

It was so bizarre that he laughed out loud, for what felt like the first time in years. "You're insane!" he said, almost falling backwards and letting House hold him upright.

"So I'm told," House answered.

"This is not exactly the best time to plan a vacation."

The dangerous glint was back in his eye. "Not a vacation," House said. "Immigration. Of the illegal variety. Run away with me, Jimmy." There must have been something strange about the lighting of the room, because it made him look almost mischievous.

"You're joking," Wilson said, still chuckling.

"Never," House said. "I'm going to jail. You're going to jail. Or maybe not, but either way, I'm screwed. And not in the fun way," he added, offering a cheesy wink for good measure.

"Oh my God," Wilson said, and whether it was at the idea that they might really go to jail, the understanding that House was dead serious about fleeing to Mexico, or the idea of the two of them actually _screwing_, he realized that more deities might be necessary. "You're not going to jail," he said, only half believing it. "We can fight this. Tritter's obviously abusing his power because of a personal vendetta. Or we could plead out --"

"Or we could go to Mexico," House interrupted. "Pina coladas, white beaches, beautiful women ..."

Wilson raised his eyebrows.

"Just in case this whole 'gay midlife crisis' thing doesn't work out."

"I thought the bike was your midlife crisis. Oh, and the 'getting arrested' thing."

"Guess so," House said. "Sounds like you're in luck then."

"Okay," Wilson said, "why don't we call fleeing to Mexico our Plan B."

"Where 'B' stands for 'Better than Plan A,'" House insisted.

"Fair enough. In the meantime, if you're actually going to take this Tritter thing seriously and help me help _you_ \--"

When House threw his cane aside, grabbed Wilson with both hands, and kissed him a third time, Wilson thought that maybe, just maybe, House might be sincerely sorry about the whole thing. He also thought that House might just be a worthy adversary for Detective Tritter. Wilson wouldn't have wanted to be on the wrong end of House's kind of single-minded determination. Even then, with his shirt twisted up in House's fists and his mouth full of House's tongue -- on the right side of the man's ferocity -- he felt a little intimidated. Wilson felt something surge through him that might have been hope, or that could have been love, or that could have been blood rushing to his groin.

"You could stay," he blurted a few minutes later, when they both came up for air. "Here, I mean. Tonight. Not," he quickly added, putting his hands up defensively for emphasis, "that I'm making any promises. This is foreign territory to me."

"You could come back," House said, letting go of Wilson's shirtfront and running his hands distractingly over Wilson's forearms. "To my place. I promise I won't eat your lunches or put cellophane over the toilet seat."

"Much as I appreciate your willingness to turn your mock frat house into a living space for actual adults," Wilson said, "Tritter has to be watching the apartment. If he sees me go in there and not come out again, he'll have a field day if this ever goes to court."

House dealt him a withering look. "He froze your bank accounts. He towed your car. He stole your pharmacy privileges. The man has no life. Don't you think he's watching this hotel room right now?" In the second before Wilson could respond, House added, "It's okay -- I put the 'do not disturb' sign on the door before I knocked."

Trying not to look disappointed, Wilson reached out to wrap his hand around House's wrist, taking an absurd amount of pleasure in the warmth he could feel coming through the cold fabric of House's sleeve. "You should go," he said. "It wouldn't look good if Tritter saw you stay here."

"Fuck Tritter," House said, leaning closer. "Come to Mexico with me."

"I don't want to fuck Tritter," Wilson said, surprising himself a little with the thought of who he might, in fact, like to fuck. "But I don't want you to leave. And I don't want to go to Mexico, either."

House's eyes went glassy and he licked his lower lip. "Pina coladas."

"No."

"Sun and sand."

"No."

"Dr. James Wilson in a Speedo."

"Definitely no."

Faster than Wilson might have expected, House was kissing him again. The hand that wasn't occupied in holding Wilson's head still was drifting -- somewhat self-consciously, Wilson imagined -- down the front of Wilson's pants. He made a small sound into House's mouth, somewhere between a sigh and a moan, and House moved his lips to Wilson's ear.

"Mexico," he whispered. The brush of heat affected Wilson in unforgivable ways, and he wrapped his arms around House and held on tight.

"Maybe," he whispered back.


End file.
